Peter Ackroyd at his most magical and magisterialâ€”a glittering, evocative, fascinating, story-filled portrait of Venice, the ultimate city. The Venetiansâ€™ language and

Venice: Pure City

Peter Ackroyd at his most magical and magisterialâ€”a glittering, evocative, fascinating, story-filled portrait of Venice, the ultimate city.

The Venetiansâ€™ language and way of thinking set them aside from the rest of Italy. They are an island people, linked to the sea and to the tides rather than the land. This latÂest work from the incomparable Peter Ackroyd, like a magic gondola, transports its readers to that sensual and surprising city.

His account embraces facts and romance, conjuring up the atmosphere of the canals, bridges, and sunlit squares, the churches and the markets, the festivals and the flowers. He leads us through the history of the city, from the first refugees arriving in the mists of the lagoon in the fourth century to the rise of a great mercantile state and its trading empire, the wars against Napoleon, and the tourist invasions of today. Everything is here: the merchants on the Rialto and the Jews in the ghetto; the glassblowers of Murano; the carnival masks and the sad colonies of lepers; the artistsâ€”Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, Tiepolo. And the ever-present undertone of Veniceâ€™s shadowy corners and dead ends, of prisons and punishment, wars and sieges, scandals and seductions.

Ackroydâ€™s Venice: Pure City is a study of Venice much in the vein of his lauded London: The Biography. Like London, Venice is a fluid, writerly exploration organized around a numÂber of themes. History and context are provided in each chapÂter, but Ackroydâ€™s portrait of Venice is a particularly novelistic one, both beautiful and rapturous. We could have no better guideâ€”reading Venice: Pure City is, in itself, a glorious journey to the ultimate city.

From the Hardcover edition.
Country USA
Brand Anchor Books
Manufacturer Anchor
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber part_0307473791
Color Multicolor
ReleaseDate 2011-10-25
UnitCount 1
Format Illustrated
EANs 9780307473790

Country	USA
Brand	Anchor Books
Manufacturer	Anchor
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	part_0307473791
Color	Multicolor
ReleaseDate	2011-10-25
UnitCount	1
Format	Illustrated
EANs	9780307473790

Venice: Pure City

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